The Veiled Boy

Above them formed a dense mist of consternation; it thickened with every tremulous breath taken and every prayer muttered. Harry had not yet gone out in this godforsaken war; the only thing of particular use to him was the feeble idea he'd formed out of another's word. The others were older than he, more experienced than he; it ought to have comforted him, but the terror of its implication worsened his agitation. And to conceal his unsteadiness, he sat down on the threadbare sofa and pressed his damp palms firmly into his knees.

His younger companions—willing to accompany him but fettered by the demands of Molly—stood anxiously beside him without much to say. Sirius kept muttering his disapproval under his breath, cursing the world and every man who lived upon it, including himself, and paced nervously about the room—for Harry's sake, not his own. 

And Harry understood the obligatory nature of his going; rights and wrongs proved a weak argument against it, and when morals come up short in justification, absolute desperation takes its place. In moments like this, one is subject to deep reflection about their previous self and if their present self proved satisfactory enough to perhaps be deemed final. 

And in his quiet reflection, he found himself thinking almost entirely of Draco. He smiled; he found it humorous that a little shy of a year ago, he'd declared his sentiments for Draco much too low, and that he, if he remembered correctly, would sooner sacrifice Draco than himself. The drastic changes a man can go through in the span of a year! For now, the very thought of having to lose Draco was sufficient enough to bring tears to his eyes, and he'd suffer cardiac palpitations and pointless insomnia for it. Whether or not Draco felt the same about him was elucidated in his absence in this living room. And Draco, despite understanding every pertinent condition behind it, felt bitterly betrayed by the moments of closeness they'd shared, every grace of touch, word spoken, and silence shared. Was it not enough? Was my crime so terrible that something as perfect as what we had could dwindle into nothingness? 

Perfect! I forget it was built on lies! Even if that were the case, his initial efforts and everything that followed had existed in his mind as separate entities. One was remembered with acrimony while the other... The other had settled itself deep in his heart; the mere removal of it would alter him too greatly if it did not kill him first. And if Draco never forgave him and a moment like the one they'd shared by the hearth was their last, Draco would cling onto it until his time. And it seemed, by some internal decree, that memory would suffice for the rest of his life. Even if he should marry another, his perception would recall that the most wonderful being had slipped away years ago, and to simply remember it will prove to be just enough to carry on.

The entrance of Snape removed him from his thoughts, and the previous unease replaced the lofty feelings of reverie. He'd been occupied below, consolidating reports to provide the Order, and his unwavering conduct was of some comfort to Harry. After exchanging words with Moody and Sirius, he turned to Harry with a look of disapproving pride. "Perhaps you ought to go up to your room to see if you have everything," said Severus in a way of orders.

Harry mentally went through everything he had on him and simply shook his head to relieve the Professor. "I have everything, don't worry."

Severus's stoical expression faltered for a moment. But before he could speak, Hermione stepped forward, her arms crossed, and a look of hurried impatience on her face. 

"Just go look!" she hissed.

With a confused reluctance, he made his way up the stairs, casting glances over his shoulders at Snape and Hermione, who watched him carefully. The upstairs was dark, for everyone was suffocating in the tension downstairs, and this darkness carried a sort of peace Harry silently longed for. Inside, he was almost pleased Draco was not with him in the room below; the boy ought to relax and feel at peace. There should never be a thing to vex him for the rest of his life. 

He walked into his room and began to scour his night table, his bed, and the desk he’d shared with his friends by the bay window. What it was he needed but could not be told perplexed him. His wand was holstered at his side, several remedies for wounds in his bag, and his cloak hidden away the very same. Checking everything in its rightful place and much too focused with tremulous nerves to ensure its security, he’d failed to notice the door had slowly begun to close. It was only when the clasp shut the tabs that the heavy bronze bolt settled into the latch that he whirled around, frightened. 

“Harry.”

He turned to find Draco’s figure slowly slip out of the shadows and into the silver moonlight. He approached him with a dignified calmness, a likeness of a ghost in times like these. Harry’s anxiety dwindled away at once, and it had been replaced by affectionate nerves, such torment only felt in times of peace and quiet. Draco now stood before him. Harry was struck by the inhuman nature of him, how divine and almost powerful; he was determined to win him back there against the other’s will. Just to touch him on the wrist or press his lips into his white shoulders. The boy’s expression was sincerely concerned, not the bitterness he’d been wearing lately; a single tear fell from his silver eyes. 

“You’ll come back, won’t you?” he whispered finally. “You’ll be safe?”

“I’ll try.”

“That answer will not suffice. You must tell me you will indeed return.”

“I can’t lie to you, Draco. Not when you look like that,” Harry whispered, taking one step closer. Draco did not move away. 

“Like what?”

“Like an angel.”

Another silent tear fell from his eyes, and he looked away at once, blushing with his previous infantile shyness. “Harry, for pity’s sake, don’t tease me like this,” he said with a tremulous voice. “I cannot bear it.”

“I’m sorry,” said Harry. “I’ll try my very best to return to you.” He took Draco’s hands in his own and held them firmly. “And if I don’t—“

“I don’t want to hear it,” the latter said in a harsh whisper. “There’s no ‘if I do not.' There’s only ‘I shall come back on time” or ‘I shall be tardy.' I will not be obliged to accept anything other than scenarios. Harry, I have yet to forgive you, and I cannot do so prematurely because I’d be inauthentic, and I’m certain it would torment me more than any delay, but that does not mean I do not care about you. You know this, don’t you? That I care?”

Harry blushed, unable to speak, thoroughly glad to hear those words from his dearest. It was like harmony had been restored in this little room. “I know.”

“Promise me,” he whispered, stepping closer and resting his head on Harry’s shoulder. “Promise you’ll come back to me.” 

With his arms, he embraced his friend deeply, pulling him in and holding him tight against his body just to feel him in his entirety. In him was so odd a feeling—it happened that terror could easily coexist with utter happiness! “I promise.”

“I’ll hate you forever if you break it,” he said quietly. “Don’t you need to regain my trust? Don’t you need to keep your word?” Draco hugged him and had begun to shiver with nerves. “Harry, they’re ruthless. Their dogma has been so contorted by desire for power that they’ve resorted to selfish slaughter—I’d angered a member to his bones just suggesting that we do not. It’s no longer about ideology but about gain, and men will stop for nothing when it comes to pride and ego. They will rip each other to shreds for a thimble of power.”

“I know,” said Harry, gently stroking the white ruffled hair of the young man in his arms. “I’ll be careful, alright? You’re shaking.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“Because you make me feel brave. You make me feel like I can do absolutely anything; knowing there’s someone worth risking it all for makes it easier.”

Draco shuddered and pulled away from Harry, wrapping himself with his own arms. “How long will you be away?”

“Our plan is to be gone for three days.” 

“Then if you’re not here on August fourth, before 11:59, then I shall hate you forever. And when you do return, I’ll scold you for being late. Understood?” 

Harry laughed. “Understood.”

“Harry, it’s time!” Sirius’s voice suddenly disrupted the heavenly solitude they’d shared. It startled Draco into a confused inaction; he stepped forward and then back again. “Harry!”

“I’ll see you soon,” said Harry, giving Draco a reassuring smile. “Take care of yourself, alright? Drink water, eat, get sleep.”

“Me? You’re telling me to take care of myself when it is you who runs so foolishly into the midst of this man-made chaos? Harry, I’ve never met anyone so stupid in my life!” With that, Draco seized his face and pressed a chaste kiss into his forehead. “I hope, by God’s will, you gain some intelligence before you reach your destination. You’ll need it to fulfill your promise to me.”

Harry blushed and nodded stupidly. “Yeah, I think I will.”

“Harry, come now, Dumbledore’s going to be angry if a child dared not come with him to war! That prick!” 

How Draco’s face looked then ought to have been painted, and every admirer would have wept to see it. The moonlight cast a chiaroscuro against his face, which only the utter helplessness of war could harden his childlike, unsullied features. There was tremendous longing there, but guaranteed tragedy had imprisoned him to a halt, and so, with visible reluctance, he stood there forced to remain silent and obliging. The curvature of his rose lips wavering with suppressed sobs, tears wet his pale cheeks as they fell from his argentine eyes. Having had his blonde hair run through by the hands of his deserter, he looked so faithfully abandoned that Harry nearly fell at his feet and begged for forgiveness. 

“I have to go,” said Harry apologetically and slowly, fighting every urge to look back at Draco—surely another glance would keep him there forever. 

“Harry, I—“

He turned to face him, but the boy was looking toward the window, wiping his eyes with the back of his hands. 

“Yes?”

“Nothing. Please just come back.”

“I will.” 

The object of their mission was to stop their purging of Great Hangleton—located near Voldemort’s father’s grave in Little Hangleton. Its population consisted almost entirely of muggles, save perhaps two or three families with magical blood. The surrounding villages, however, contained a good amount of residents knowing of the Veil; according to Snape, the taking of this greater village would startle the rest into compliance, and there was no better place for Voldemort’s statement than his wretched father’s hometown. 

The neighboring residential area was dismal indeed; they were somehow knowing—for humans are animals too—of some imminent danger, and the air was heavy with deadly silence and anticipation. It transformed from what had been a peaceable town into one hardened by helpless terror. Harry followed the others under his cloak through the narrow footpaths of the small town, teeth chattering, though summer, even if his feeling of apprehension had left him a long while ago. The group moved discretely through the crowd of absent-minded townsfolk; they moved like livestock in a packing factory, glassy eyes, unknowing of the terrible fate that awaited them. 

In a recess of buildings, the crowd dispersed as the shops grew sparse, and their group slipped into a narrow alley where there seemed to be more vermin than people. Sirius, under his black hood, unraveled a scrap of paper and nodded in confirmation to the rest. Removing his hood, he revealed his face to an obscure basement window skillfully lodged in between grocery crates and rubbish bins. The hatch on the neighboring door lifted, and with the squeal of a hinge, the group moved swiftly inside. 

The place was small, and because it was underground, it wielded the damp, mildew air that thrived in this sort of darkness. With the overcast skies and the singular window, the place was sufficiently lit by tallow candles placed on every surface. A man who Harry had never seen, and whose face was hidden by a similar cloak to Sirius’s, hastily shut the curtain of his basement window and began locking his door with trembling hands. Harry studied the room more carefully. 

Plastered upon the walls were newspaper clippings with maddened scribbles littered upon them all. On the desk, which seemed to also function as a dining area—there was a half-eaten loaf of bread and cold tea—were decorated ceremoniously with these same hysterical but studious mark-ups. How long this individual had lived here was unknown, but it seemed that he’d gone mad here like a soul trapped in the house that rid it of its mortal body. 

“Anyone see you?” asked the hooded figure—his American accent cut the air like a blade. 

“No.”

“Is this all of you then?”

“No, we have Harry,” said Sirius, looking around aimlessly for him. Harry removed his cloak, and every member of their group sighed with relief. Remus gave his shoulder a firm squeeze. 

“Ah, long time no see, soot-face,” said the American. He removed his hood and revealed himself as the man who stood beside him at the execution of Hammock. 

“Glad to know you haven’t gotten yourself killed. You mind if I smoke?” The American turned to Sirius, who shook his head. 

“Your place.”

“Pfft, my place,” he muttered and lit his cigarette. “Upstairs is an old invalid with dementia; she can’t remember a thing, nor can she hear very well. There’s one other room yonder; unpack your things, your supplies, and whatnot. I’ll be here.”

The order moved into the neighboring room, but Harry was much too confused with the association with this stranger and the Order. How was it that he happened on seeing him twice, both at rather crucial moments? 

“Sirius,” Harry whispered once they’d begun to unpack. “Who is that man?”

“Arthur Miller,” said Sirius. “The only man who might have loved Regulus as much as I did.”

“He was at the execution, Hammock’s execution,” said Harry. “Why? Revenge?”

“Yes, I’m afraid he won’t rest until every last council member is slaughtered. He’s been tracking down the Veil’s every move since my brother’s death, so when he’d heard we were coming to interject, he readily volunteered his quarters to hide us. A little bloodthirsty, I’ll say, but I’ll lay all my bets on him.” 

Harry was silent and glanced into the other room. Arthur was reading a newspaper clipping with a cigarette between his lips. The figure looked cut off from the real world, unable to distinguish things clearly. He stood resolute and strong, but with knees unable to bear the weight of the guilt that had etched itself clearly into the stress-induced wrinkles on his face. The story of Regulus Black resurfaced in Harry’s mind, and the impact it had before only intensified upon the heart half his own. 

“My brother was in love with that man, and that man adored him too. They spoke of running off to Prague in just a month. Could you imagine the horror that man endured reading the Prophet?”

The prophet is all the man read. It was plastered all over his little cellar as a tormenting reminder that it might’ve been his absence that rid him of his lover. And Harry understood at once why the man could never leave nor move on; he’d have blamed himself into an immovable life if Draco had been arrested from his bedroom and Cleansed the very same.  

At night the candles were blown out save for one in the main room, and everyone was bid to rest before the morning. But Harry lay on the cold concrete floor, restless with internal discomfort. Arthur had been on watch by the door, but the man’s eyes threatened to betray him as heavy lids were quick in closing but slow in coming up. Harry met him at the door and tapped his shoulder. “Hey, I’ll sit here for the night.”

“You have to rest, soot-face,” said Arthur. 

“I can’t.”

“Nervous?”

“I don’t know.”

Arthur reached into his pocket and produced his box of cigarettes; wordlessly, he offered one to Harry. “No, thanks. I don’t smoke.”

“That’s right, you’re too young. Who’s got you dragged into this mess, huh? Not Black, I suppose.”

“No, I have to. I’m Voldemort’s natural enemy; I’m afraid I haven’t much of a choice,” said Harry, sitting down beside the smoking man. “Hey, thanks for helping us out.”

“Don’t mention it. I’m not helping you out for your sake; anyone who intends to spill Veiled blood is welcome,” said Arthur with an undertone of bitterness. “Only a few are lucky to see it, the hypocrisy of it all, I mean. It becomes too suffocating for those good ones: the Veil turns you into a deserter; anything like it is infinitely worse than being a coward. I hear the Heir is at your place.” 

Harry nodded. Arthur took a long draw from his cigarette and shook his head pensively. “Lucius Malfoy is hiding him.”

“So I hear. He’s probably bitter now that his rank has a superior. Minister wasn’t enough for him; I suppose he wishes to be the Dark Lord.”

“It’s not like that. Draco couldn’t carry out with the Veil; he told his parents, and they let him leave.”

Arthur stared at him as if from his forehead two antlers sprung out, and that seemed a more realistic phenomenon than the one he’d just relayed to him. “Interesting. I guess that ideology could produce a pair of sane parents.” 

There was a silence between them, but a mutual understanding produced by similar circumstances on opposite ends of a timeline. Harry suddenly pictured it all as if it had happened to him. He could picture his Draco now; he is sleeping soundly under a duvet of swan feathers, his head on a satin pillow, and his mind undisturbed by the trials of impending war. Knowing that it was a cherub like him who had deserted and thus could be condemned to death. My Draco, condemned for absolutely nothing at all. My cherub, my indestructible youth. And every second Harry is away is a moment of vulnerability. 

“I’m sorry about Regulus,” whispered Harry. “I cannot imagine…I don’t even wish to imagine what that was like.”

Arthur nodded slowly and turned his head away, lighting another cigarette, but Harry felt he’d been concealing a tear. “I just hope it’s different for you… Some of them get lucky, I guess. Andromeda got lucky; Sirius got lucky… but when you turn on that radio and listen, you sort of get an idea of how impossible it is to make it out.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, how did you two meet?” 

“Regulus and I?”

“Yeah.”

Arthur’s eyes grew distant; the natural austerity gave way to a youthful softness as he reminisced about the time in his life when his heart beat for feeling and not for natural function. “Love at first sight, I guess. I’m muggle-born, but when they turn seventeen, they get to show you their face. I’ve seen several Viewings, they were popular attractions back then—everybody was invited, especially for the bigger houses. I was in the crowd when Regulus’s Veil was removed, and I nearly fell over and choked on the chicken I’d been eating,” Arthur managed a laugh. “God, I couldn’t leave the ceremony. Usually I’ll just stay for a laugh if they’re ugly and go home, but I stayed for the whole thing. Pale, smooth skin, these large black eyes framed by long lashes. I’d never seen anything so wonderfully attractive. Here.”

From his breast pocket, he produced a small portrait of Regulus Black. He possessed a resemblance to Sirius, but with a more subtle sort of vigor had by his brother. Rigid features and bold contrasts were made gentle by those doe-like eyes. And in them was a suggestion of virginal chastity that hid a deep longing for something sensual and perverse. His entire visage savored similarly to Draco’s: a little less cavalier and more indistinguishably mortal. It was a strange beauty. 

Looking at the photo with undisguised affection, Arthur continued his story. “I moved to the front in some stupid trance, and he noticed me staring. Who knows what he saw in me? I probably looked as dumb as you at the execution, all dirty with soot—I’d just finished a night shift at the factory—and sweat. But he gave me a shy smile, that sort of smile that rewires your brain and makes your knees feel like boiled spaghetti. You know what I mean?”

“Definitely.”

“The ceremony ends, and they take him away. Some odd instinct brought me back to the square the next day; I truly thought he’d cast a curse on me because I’d become positively obsessed. And there he was. He was waiting for me, though he never admitted it, and he gave me the very same smile. So, naturally, I tell him stupidly that he’s a real fine lad; I like him and all that; that it was a shame he was Veiled because I’d have liked to take him to dinner, and I’d have my way with him, and he’d have liked it too much that he’d have to come back for more. Mind you, I did not have an education, and I was nineteen. I didn’t know how to flirt or behave. Stupidity plus impulse makes for disaster.” Arthur visibly cringed while Harry laughed. 

“Oh boy, that earned me a clean slap across the face and a scolding from Regulus. I mean, I deserved it; who goes up to someone to tell ‘em you’d bed them real good? He scolded me for being a pervert, a homosexual, a dirty-blood, a vermin, whatever that book has us down as. He left, and I was without him for a week. Then, by fate, I happen upon him staggering down this very alleyway—"Arthur pointed at the window above them—“and he’s staggering like a drunk, crying with a bottle of champagne in his hand. I take him in, but I don’t do nothing to him, of course. Turns out he’d been formally engaged that morning and wanted to throw himself off Earnshaw Bridge. I talk him out of it, let him stay a while, and in the morning, we go for a walk. I guess I can be charming, because he says it was that morning when he fell in love with me. And for a year we’d been hiding away, loving each other and whatnot.” Suddenly, Arthur’s visage darkened again, and he seemingly aged ten years. “One day, he’s in my bed and he wants tea. I don’t have any—I drank coffee. So, I go to the market, but when I come back, he’s not there no more.” Arthur dried his eyes hastily and quickly lit another cigarette. 

“And the last thing he’d said to me was to hurry back, because he’d miss me too much. I should have hurried. I stayed away too long looking for a stupid present to get him.” Arthur cleared his throat, running his trembling hands through his hair. “God, I loved him to death… The only thing that kept me from the bottom of the river under Earnshaw Bridge was my craving to see their wretched heads on pikes. To see ‘em burn, scream, and choke on their blood like they did to my baby.” 

Harry and Arthur sat in silence for a while. He did not know what he could do to remedy the wound he’d opened, so he merely said this: “Tomorrow they’ll be passing through to Hangleton.”

“The Council?”

“The Council and some scouts.” Arthur nodded and dried his eyes once again, his bottom lip quivering painfully. 

“Yeah, I can’t wait.” After another silence, Arthur turned to him. “You need anything to eat? Drink?”

“I guess I’m a bit thirsty; what do you have?”

“Water, whiskey, and tea.”

“I’ll take tea if there’s enough.”

“There’s enough,” said Arthur as he rose to his feet. “I always have it in the house.”